


A Fractured Reality

by juliesioux



Series: Exploring the Future [8]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, Dreams, Established Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak, F/M, Felicity Smoak post injury, Guilty Oliver Queen, Injury, Lies, Love, Protective Oliver, olicity - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-17 00:12:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5846359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juliesioux/pseuds/juliesioux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a moment in time when Oliver reflects, through those brief thoughts we have as we wake up, his devotion to Felicity and how much their relationship truly means to him.</p><p>It is told through the prism of Oliver's reflections on how he has adjusted to Felicity's new reality.<br/>It is a short one. Not necessarily a nice one, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fractured Reality

 

_Each small breath_

_was a tidal surge_

_sweeping him into the void._

 

He felt a cool breeze pass over his body and without opening his eyes, he reached down to find the blanket that had slipped off during the night and pulled it up over himself and Felicity. He was guilty of kicking the sheets off the bed on a regular basis and knew where to reach to find them without aid of sight.

He lazily turned towards Felicity, edging towards her as softly as possible, and gently wrapped his arm around her. His fear of hurting her cracked under his skin. He made sure to never hug her too quickly or pull her to him without first making sure she was awake. They had developed a routine without knowing it over the past couple of weeks. He would usually wake up a few moments before she did and would wait for her to turn her head to look at him. With a tender smile, he would move to her side of the bed and wrap his body around hers.

There were nights when she would wake up, seized in pain as the nerves in her legs misfired like a million bee stings deep within her still firm thighs. She would cry out in a strangled voice, so wracked with pain that she was incoherent. He would hold her until she could breathe properly and then massage her as the spasms stopped. If the timing was right, he would get her pain medication and stroke her back until she relaxed back into his arms in a deep, painfree sleep.

What hurt him more than any punch or bullet wound ever could was the way she would cry silent tears into his chest as he cradled her. Some nights she would sleep through the tears and he would dry her cheeks and wait until they stopped and then he would slowly edge closer to her in the anticipation of her slow rise to wakefulness. Oliver sometimes let his tears join hers as he waited helplessly for her to come back to their fractured reality. He made sure that he was the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes, that he was close enough for her to reach out for as she couldn’t move towards him.

He knew, from watching and listening to her breathe, what each small change in the rhythm of her breaths meant. He knew if she was dreaming, if she was about to have a nightmare or slowly waking up. He felt a deep ache in his chest, one he would never tell her about, as he memorized the essence of her. Oliver could feel her heart beat resonating within his soul.

Now at night he would wake up when he felt the slightest shift in the mattress. Felicity never asked, but he would wait until she reached for his hand and then he would help her shift her body into a new position. She was just figuring out how able she was and sometimes, when pain or exhaustion had overtaken her, she would seek his help and welcome his embrace.

The breeze he felt was back but he wasn’t ready to wake up just yet. Instead, he burrowed deeper under the covers, savouring the warmth and comfort of their bed. He was battered and worn from a long night of fighting Ghosts and tracking down Darhk. The team was getting closer to finding Damien Darhk, he could feel it, but he was always one step ahead of them.

In the darkness of the quiet, still hour right before the return of day, Oliver would sometimes study Felicity. Her face, her arms, her hands and legs. He would lightly trace the shape of her face and revel in the softness of her skin. The ache in his chest would grow, along with the heat in his blood, and he would let his mind drift back to Bali, to the days before Vandal Savage crashed through their living room window and William came into his life.

They were happy then. They were happy now but he could feel the sword that hung over his head, hanging by a thin, genetic thread. He couldn’t let her be hurt again but he felt powerless and deeply, profoundly guilty about not being able to include her in the knowledge of his son.

With a deep sigh, he rolled over onto his stomach and sought the remnants of sleep before they tumbled away into the coming dawn. She was deeply asleep now and would be for at least another hour or so. Oliver joined his breath to hers and let the dreamless void take him.

 

_Oliver felt the breeze again and far away humming sound. The light had changed in the bedroom and he knew soon Felicity would be waking up. He let himself slowly come to the surface of consciousness and crested there for a moment to let his senses take over. He shifted slightly and sought out the warmth of her body._

_His seeking hand found only cold air. Oliver’s eyes snapped open in panic and alarm. Sitting up, he looked around his bedroom, frantically trying to find her. What he saw made no sense to his groggy mind. He saw his salmon ladder, the ramp to the centre bank of computers. He heard Diggle talking softly on the phone somewhere beyond the wall he was sleeping behind._

_The breeze was from a ventilator shaft above his head in the Lair where he was sleeping on a roll out cot. Felicity was back at the loft, sleeping alone without him to help, to make sure she got the rest she needed in order to heal all because he allowed the sword to drop of its own accord. He lost the only chance he had to take her hand and draw her into the world were his son existed._

_He had faced down the relentless power of time and lost._

_The ceaseless cold breeze continued to blow over him, drying his tears as they fell as he tried to locate the moments before they found themselves living through a prism of pain and regret._


End file.
